The shadows resembled people. They had arms, a torso, a head. They moved, darting across the room, ruffling the curtains, whispering among themselves.
In the middle of the room, the hair burned very bright, too bright, its glow the remaining source of illumination now because the shadows dominated everything, not a single stray ray of light creeping in from the outside. An endless darkness and the shadow people standing in front of them, very close, the dim fire revealing that they had no features, their faces were smooth as pebbles.
Hun-Kamé had told her to hold his hand, but instead she squeezed it tight. The room’s expensive furniture, the massive bed, the oil paintings on the walls, they all had faded. What was left was merely darkness. She was not even sure if there was a floor beneath their feet. Hun-Kamé alone anchored her in place.
“You called for us,” one of the shadow persons said, though none of them had a mouth.
“I thank you for attending me. I am Hun-Kamé, Lord of Xibalba, who searches for his stolen essence. Somewhere in this city a piece of myself has been hidden. Do you know where it might be?”
“Answers have a price.”
“Rest assured, it shall be paid,” Hun-Kamé said and tossed strands of her long hair, which he held in his free hand, at them.
The shadows gurgled and scrabbled, snatching bits of hair and eating them. They did have mouths, after all, and long, gray tongues, which rolled out onto the floor, and they had eyes that glowed blue-green, slits of color floating in the dark. Casiopea felt her body turn into iron, and now she didn’t only hold the death god’s hand, she shifted very close to him.
“This is nothing, these are scraps,” one of the shadows said.
“Careful,” Hun-Kamé said, “mind your words. I am kind now, but I could be harsher and wring the truth from you.”
“Refuse and filth, bits and pieces and nothing whole,” the shadow said. “Give us fresh meat and bones instead. Give us her.”
All the blue-green eyes turned toward Casiopea in unison, and they were fearsome, and one of them held her gaze.
Had she been able to distinguish their faces, even if they looked like rotten corpses, she might not have been so scared. But in the dark the shadows had the outlines of childhood monsters and they held her in their thrall, their blue-green glow making her think of evil dreams. They smelled bad, too, sickly-sweet; the aroma of wilted flowers.
She raised her hands to cover her mouth, fearing she’d scream, and when her fingers touched her lips she realized she had let go of Hun-Kamé. She looked around, trying to hold on to him, but he was gone. The room was gone. The fire was dying away. There were only the dark pillars that shuffled closer and closer to her, their glowing eyes growing more vivid, their tongues brushing the floor.
“Oh, her heart, we’ll chew it twice and then spit it and chew it again,” one of the shadows said.
“And the marrow, the marrow too. We’ll drink from her veins,” replied another.
A tongue snaked in Casiopea’s direction, brushing her foot, and she gasped and stepped away from it, but the circle of shadows grew tighter, they closed in around her like a noose. North and south and east and west. They were everywhere.
She pressed her hands against her mouth again, panicked, and for one moment she suspected the god had intended to leave her with these things all along. That it had been a ruse and she was to be their meal. But there was the bone shard in her finger. He wouldn’t.
The shadows were so close, and their putrescence made her want to gag. They opened their mouths, and their breath curled out, cold and humid and blue-green, making her wince.
If only she’d held on to his hand!
“And…and not looked into their eyes,” she whispered.
But she was looking! She realized then that she had not stopped looking at that one shadow that had caught her gaze. She drew a deep breath and closed her eyes, and felt her body sway, and there was the grip of hands on her shoulders.
“Casiopea, look at me,” a voice said.
“No,” she replied, her eyes closed tight.
She felt warm breath from human lips as he leaned down to speak into her ear. “It is me, Hun-Kamé,” he said.
She snapped her eyes open and looked up at him, and he looked down at her, slowly taking her left hand between his. The shadows grumbled and sighed around them; a couple of them spat on the floor. She could see the outlines of the room again and the wastebasket with the burning hair.
“We are famished!” they said. “We are hungry!”
“Oh, she nearly forgot herself,” wailed another.
“Quiet, you degenerate fiends, and attend me,” Hun-Kamé said, his voice cutting through their muttering like a blade. “Your eyes, on the ground, don’t you dare raise them again.”
The shadows hissed, and their blue-green glow grew narrow until they had no eyes. Blind they stood before both of them.
“Now, tell me what I need to know.”
The shadows spoke to one another in animated whispers, bowing their heads, as if conferring among themselves. Their tongues lolled out and in of their mouths. The matter decided, they spoke again.
“Head to Xtabay’s abode,” a shadow said. Perhaps the same one that had caught her eye before, perhaps another. Casiopea could not tell them apart.
“Where does she reside?”
“Nearby, see here,” the shadow said and a spark of fire, from the burning hair, lifted itself into the air and traced a line, a shape.
“My thanks,” Hun-Kamé said and tossed the last bits of hair to the shadows, which fell onto one another to devour them. And as they fell, blending, becoming one, the cold from the room ebbed, the darkness changed, and they were standing in the middle of a normal room, a tendril of smoke rising from the wastebasket, the bustling city again outside their window.
“I told you not to look at them,” Hun-Kamé said, letting go of her hand. He sounded grim, and she felt silly for the whole episode. First she’d wept, then she’d lost hold of him. And she’d been so scared, like a girl.
“I know,” she muttered.
The hair he’d tossed on the floor and the burnt hair in the wastebasket had vanished, but a sulfuric stench lingered in the room. He opened the windows to allow light and air in, and Casiopea was grateful for this gesture because the air inside was charged and stale.
Casiopea breathed in slowly. She felt supremely tired, her legs threatening to buckle beneath her. Her hand throbbed and she rubbed it, bending down at the same time, as if a heavy stone had been deposited on her shoulders. She straightened herself quickly enough, but he had noticed.